1. Field of the Invention
A commonly used type of centrifuge for laboratories comprises a rotor or rotating head carrying swing buckets pivotally carried on respective axes transverse to the rotation axis of the rotor. The swing buckets have housings, each for receiving a test tube containing a sample or specimen to be centrifuged. During operation, the rotor rotates around its axis (generally vertical) and each swing bucket swings about its axis (generally horizontal) toward an horizontal or nearly horizontal position, and the content thereof is subject to centrifugal force.
Automated centrifuging systems are being used in laboratories for the treatment of biological samples, solutions and suspensions, contained into test tubes, bottles and/or microtiter plates. In these areas automated centrifuges are required with the following features: they must be controllable by an external computer system; the door or a smaller opening thereof must be opened and closed automatically to allow for bucket removal; the motor and its controller must be able to bring each of the buckets to the handling position and hold it therein; imbalance tolerance should be higher than for standard centrifuges. The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method apt to be integrated into an automated analysis, control and process for biological, chemical, pharmacological, toxicological, alimentary, environmental research and correlated activities.
2. Description of the Related Art
Apparatus for automating the centrifugation step in an automatic biological or related analysis system have been disclosed by various inventors.
CA 2,232,932 discloses a swing bucket centrifuge assembly wherein the centrifuge buckets are open-sided for permitting the loading-unloading of test tubes by means of a robot-type loading/unloading mechanism, when a bucket is in a loading-unloading position above the centrifuge top platform. The centrifuge disclosed in the Canadian patent is not suitable for operating with buckets having a bucket cover.
Other inventors do not disclose how to take the cover away from the swing out buckets, or leave this task to the robotic arm or other device of the combined test suite; thus increasing complication and workload of the devices.
The present invention is aimed at solving the above problem.